Charlotte Bronte: Who was the famous Yorkshire author and poet, where was she from and what novel was she famous for? Everything you need to know about the Bronte sister ahead of her 207th birthday

Charlotte was the eldest of the three Bronte sisters and whose novels became classic English literature. She left school at the age of 15 to teach her sisters Emily and Anne at home and returned in 1835 as a governess.

She became pregnant shortly after getting married in June 1854. Charlotte was the last to die of all her siblings on March 31, 1855 at the age of 38 most likely from hyperemesis gravidarum, a complication of pregnancy that causes excessive nausea and vomiting.

April 21, 2023 is Charlotte’s 207th birthday and Elizabeth Gaskell’s biography The Life of Charlotte Bronte was published in 1857; it was a vital step for a female novelist to write a biography of another. The Bronte family home was turned into a museum and is listed Grade I on the National Heritage List for England.

Early life of Charlotte Bronte

Charlotte was born in April 1816 in Market Street, Thornton, west of Bradford and is the third of six children born to Maria and Patrick, an Irish Anglican priest. Her family moved to the village of Haworth in 1820, where her father was appointed perpetual curate of St Michael and All Angels Church.

Maria died of cancer on September 15, 1821, leaving five daughters, Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Emily and Anne and a son, Branwell, who was taken care of by his sister Elizabeth.

In August 1824, Charlotte, Emily, Maria and Elizabeth were sent to the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire; Charlotte felt that her school’s poor conditions affected her health and physical development and quickened the deaths of Maria and Elizabeth, who both died of tuberculosis in June 1825.

Following the deaths of his older daughters, Patrick withdrew Charlotte and Emily from the school and Charlotte used the school as inspiration for Lowood School in her successful novel, which is similarly affected by tuberculosis that is exacerbated by the poor conditions.

At their home in Haworth Parsonage, now the Bronte Parsonage Museum, Charlotte looked after her younger sisters similar to a motherly friend and guardian. She wrote her first known poem at the age of 13 in 1829 and went on to write more than 200 poems throughout her life.

The Bronte family owned a magazine titled Branwell’s Blackwood’s Magazine, where Charlotte’s poems were published, and revolved around the fictional world of Glass Town. Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne created this world where they chronicled the lives and struggles of the natives of their made up world in 1827.

From 1831 and on, Emily and Anne created a ‘spin-off’ called Gondal, this included many of their poems and after 1831, Charlotte and Branwell focussed on an evolution of the Glass Town Confederacy called Angria.

Charlotte and Branwell’s dedication to preserving their imaginary world continued for many years, however, Branwell eventually became bored with his inventions, including the Glass Town magazine, so Charlotte took over his initiative and kept the publication going for several more years.

From 1831 to 1832, Charlotte continued her education at a boarding school 20 miles from home in Mirfield, Roe Head, which is now part of Hollybank Special School, where she met her long term friends and peers Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor.

She wrote the short novel, The Green Dwarf, in 1833, using the name Wellesley and throughout that year her stories shifted from tales of the supernatural to more real life stories. Charlotte went back to Roe Head as a teacher from 1835 to 1838, though she grew unhappy and lonely as a teacher at the school and poured out her sorrows in poetry, writing a series of melancholic poems.

She took up first of many positions as governess to families in Yorkshire in 1839, a career she undertook until 1841, in particular from May to July 1839, she was employed by the Sidgwick family at their summer house, Stone Gappe, in Lothersdale.

Charlotte left after a few months to return to Haworth, where the sisters opened a school but failed to find pupils. That was when they turned to writing and each published their first literary work in 1846 under the pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell.

What novel was Charlotte Bronte famous for?

Emily and Charlotte both travelled to Brussels to enrol at the boarding school run by Constantin Heger and his wife Claire Zoe Parent Heger.

During their travels, Charlotte, who favoured the Protestant ideal of an individual in direct contact with God, rejected the stern Catholicism of Madame Heger, believing that a tyrannical religion enforced conformity and submission to the Pope. While they were there, Charlotte taught English and Emily taught music.

Their time at the school was short lived when their aunt Elizabeth Branwell, who had joined the family in Haworth to look after the children following their mother’s death, also died of internal obstruction in October 1842.

Charlotte returned to Haworth in January 1844 and used her experience in Brussels as inspiration for some of the events in The Professor and Villette.

Though Charlotte’s first book The Professor was rejected by publishers, her second book Jane Eyre was published in 1847 and became known worldwide as a literary success.

Marriage of Charlotte Bronte and Arthur Bell Nicholls

Irishman Arthur, who was her father’s curate and had been in love with her for a long time, proposed to Charlotte just before the publication of her third and last novel Villette in 1853.

She initially rejected the proposal and her father objected to the union, partly due to his poor financial status.

Charlotte grew increasingly attracted to Arthur and by January 1854 she accepted his proposal. By April that year, her father approved of the marriage and they got married in June.

The couple went on their honeymoon in Banagher, County Offaly, Ireland and their marriage was an overall success. Charlotte was very happy in their relationship in a way that was new to her.

The death of Charlotte Bronte

Charlotte quickly fell pregnant soon after she got married, but her health rapidly declined and according to her official biographer, Elizabeth, she was attacked by ‘sensations of perpetual nausea and ever-recurring faintness’.

She died, with her unborn child, on March 31, 1855, three weeks before her 39th birthday. According to her death certificate, she died from phthisis, also known as consumption, though biographers including Claire Harman suggested that she died from dehydration and malnourishment due to vomiting caused by severe morning sickness or hyperemesis gravidarum.

Charlotte was buried in the family vault in the Church of St Michael and All Angels at Haworth.